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Top Management Linked To Cover-up Of Nuclear Accident

TOKYO — Top managers helped conceal the extent of damage from a December accident at an experimental plutonium reactor, officials disclosed.

The involvement of senior officials at the government-funded company that runs the Monju fast-breeder reactor contradicts earlier statements that only local plant officials were behind the cover-up.

Not long after the release of the report's findings Friday, a key member of an in-house investigation team accused of concealing the damage committed suicide by leaping from the 8th floor of a downtown Tokyo hotel, police said.

In the Dec. 8 accident, technicians at the plant in Tsuruga, 220 miles west of Tokyo, delayed for 90 minutes before shutting down the reactor. As a result, a secondary cooling system overheated, spilling tons of caustic sodium, some of which exploded. No one was injured.

Videos of the accident were heavily edited to minimize the damage. The unedited footage showed mounds of explosive sodium on the floor and holes burned in the cooling pipes.